You can’t invest if you don’t have excess money in your budget. A lot of people make little financial mistakes that collectively hurt their ability to buy stocks and make long-term financial moves. Maxx Chatsko joins Dan Kline to talk about some of the financial drains that can be avoided (and a few that maybe can’t). We’ll also look at the first in vivo clinical results for CRISPR gene editing.

Transcript

Sam Bailey  0:12

Welcome to 7investing Now, a show that teaches you how to take a long term view on investing by better understanding what’s happening in the market now.

Dan Kline  0:22

Good afternoon 7investors and welcome to the Wednesday edition of 7Investing Now. Coming to you live from my patio here in Davenport, Florida, where I’m dealing with some technical difficulties. My name of course, is Daniel Brooks Kline. And for those of you who are not familiar, this is a dongle. This plugs into my Mac which then plugs into my camera and some part of that chain isn’t working. So if I look a little darker and more sinister than usual, it is because I am on the fairly crummy FaceTime camera on my laptop. Maxx Chatsko joining me today, no such technical issues from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Maxx I want to start the show out with I was watching Get Up this morning. And they called Mike Tomlin an excellent coach. You live in Pittsburgh is going 10-6 or 9-7 and losing in the second round or the first round of the playoffs every year. Is this the new standard for excellence because I don’t see Mike Tomlin as an excellent coach.

Maxx Chatsko  1:21

He’s great in the preseason. Dan, I mean, I don’t know did you see him last year out there at Latrobe University. He was he was really coaching and pretty hard.

Dan Kline  1:29

I think they’ve gotten over the idea that he just looks like a coach. Like he really really like if you were making a movie about a coach Mike Tomlin would be the perfect pick. I’m sorry, our friends in Pittsburgh. I do like picking on the Steelers. But it’s not enough to just be good. They always call Ben Roethlisberger a Hall of Famer, really, you should win more than one Super Bowl if you’re going to be a Hall of Famer. But I know that everybody gets into the Football Hall of Fame.

Maxx Chatsko  1:52

He’s won two Super Bowls. He lost one. But no, no quarterback who’s ever won two Super Bowls is not in the Hall of Fame, Dan. So

Dan Kline  1:58

Did he win two? Well, let’s hope Eli Manning is the first quarterback to not get that distinction. We are going to do a show that was inspired by Twitter. So I threw up on Twitter yesterday. What’s the biggest financial drain that people would be better off without and usually you put something on Twitter gets a couple 100 interactions, maybe a few 1000 people see it. Maxx, when we logged on to this show, my post had over 50,000 people who had seen it and interacted with it. This is a topic that resonates and why is this an investing topic? Well, if you waste a lot of money on stupid things, you’re not going to have money to invest.

So I am not a F.I.R.E. guy, you know, that make every sacrifice so you can retire? Because like what if you get hit by a bus? There has to be a modicum of Yep, you do things like buy a vacation home, which is where I’m sitting now. You have your fun, you go to Disney World, which is what I’m doing. But you make cuts where you need to make cuts. Sam Bailey behind the glass we are going to start with what I shared on the topic. And apologies to my parents, because it’s a different world right now. I go with paying for a college education nearly all the time. In most fields, a state college or community college degree is fine. And many, many industries should consider not making degrees mandatory. Debt that leads to higher income makes sense. But that’s not the usual equation.

So what am I talking about? Back in the 90s, when I was in college, there was really only a couple of paths, you went to an expensive college or you went to a community college, many of those didn’t even have four year degrees, you could go to a state school, but that was very limited. And in some states, they’re very good schools, so they’re not easy to get into. Now, you can go work at Starbucks, you could go work at Walmart, you could go work at, you know, 25 other places that will subsidize your education. There are all sorts of online and inexpensive ways.

And most fields now Maxx your training is in a field where where you went might matter. Like if you’re going to be a lawyer, your first job is predicated by where you went to school. So that can absolutely be important. But for journalism, which is what I came up doing, my first job came from my first internship which became my first part time job, which became my boss got fired over Christmas vacation and I ended up getting his job. And it was because I was good at what I do. I had some wonderful professors over at Hofstra University, but I’m not sure my education in history is all that relevant. I guess I learned some research techniques. Apologies to Professor Doug Brinkley, my class advisor and NBCs, lead White House historian. I think that’s his title. Maxx, what are your thoughts on this particular one?

Maxx Chatsko  4:40

Yeah, it’s one of those tricky subjects, right? I think when it works, a college education is great. People earn a high income they get to live a comfortable life. But I think it doesn’t work out too often enough where it is a sticking point in society. For me actually one of my biggest regrets in life maybe my biggest is that I went to grad school. I think It was really unnecessary. This is where most of my student loan debt comes from, I listened to a mentor, who, when I was younger, I didn’t really realize this at the time, right?

But I listened to a mentor, he’s very wealthy. So for him going to an elite University for grad school or paying for his children, that’s nothing, right? That’s a rounding error. For me, now, I have $80,000 in student loan debt. And you know, just the interest alone is like, I’m gonna pay this off by, 2300, maybe. So you do need to be careful. And I would encourage younger people to really think hard about it, you can knock out a lot of your first two years of college at a community college, and maybe it’s not as cool or whatever, but you’re gonna save a lot of money and really be happy in the end, I think. So. There’s a lot of different ways to do it. Don’t just go because everybody else is going, you know, it’s a big decision. It’s a big financial commitment as well.

Dan Kline  5:47

It’s a really tough choice, and I think it’s more societally acceptable now, I grew up in a town, where not going to college was pretty much not an option in Swampscott Massachusetts. It’s very upscale, it isn’t even something I even considered. For my 17 year old who is about to be a senior in high school. We’re not I want to say not letting him go to college, but he doesn’t have the bent to go to college. So we want him to work for a couple of years, figure out if the profession he wants to go into if a degree makes sense, or some specialty training, maybe culinary school, maybe Who knows, maybe a trade maybe there are a lot of fields, we’re just having a degree is kind of mandatory, but it could literally be a degree from anywhere. Now while he’s working, we’re going to ask him to take a class a semester. So you know, each year he knocks off like three classes between the two fall semester, the fall in the spring and the summer. We see that as making sense. And then yeah, if he decides, wow, I really want to do this thing where having the right degree would make sense. Well, then he’ll have some experience, it’ll be a little bit easier to get in because he’ll he’ll be moving in that direction. I think it’s a tough personal decision. And I’ll let you finish up here.

Maxx Chatsko  6:55

Yes, spoiler alert. Once you have a degree, at some point, it matters about experience like very, very early in your career. It just matters about your experience and all your degrees and your grades don’t matter at all right? So for like so much of your life, you’re focused on like grades and studying and all that. And then like a year or two in your career, it’s like, Okay, what have you done so far? And that matters way more, Dan. So

Dan Kline  7:16

We would love your questions and comments, we see some coming in. We will take a break and do those later. Yeah, I will say for me in high school, I was very lucky that we had a video production studio and my friend and then mentor Len Kaplan ran, who watches the show and is a 7Investing subscriber that’s why I’m calling out his name, a hands on video production experience. I was writing I was editing I got internships. So when it came time to get a job, I actually knew how to do the job. I got my first job because my college roommate used to have a summer job at a publishing house. And they asked him if he had a couple of friends to come over and we proof read what is essentially an industry phonebook. And they asked him if he wanted a school year job doing some short write ups for basically for television shows at trade shows, which is not a thing now but used to be in every hotel room at big trade shows. You get the half hour new show on loop. I knew how to write those I got the job. And they didn’t have to train me. I’ve been doing that since I was in 11th grade. So I was ready.

At no point did they ask me any questions about college other than how could I work around classes, which sometimes I worked in classes as we’ve discussed on this program before so I think it is very, very personal.Sam Bailey, if you want to throw up Wills comment, we will keep working through these. “If you can’t pay cash now, you probably shouldn’t buy it.” Yeah, I’ve been stunned Maxx that like Affirm is in so many places, that it’s like you are buying two pounds of toffee on Amazon, would you like to pay $3.99 for six months.

The only area where I’m okay with financing is when you can afford it. And you’re being offered 0% interest financing, I think there’s some benefit to maintaining that cash flexibility. So what’s my example, on our previous condo, my wife and I redid our floors, it was I don’t know, like $9,000. And the flooring itself was about $6,000 worth of that floor and decor offered me 18 months at 0% interest. I set it on auto pay. So it paid off in a year. So I wasn’t even getting close. And I maintained that cash flexibility if something else went wrong or another thing needed to happen. So I’m not against payments if you actually have the money. Your thoughts on this one Maxx?

Maxx Chatsko  9:31

Yeah, there’s ways to use it strategically, like you said, as long as it’s like 0% interest and you can actually pay it off in the term. Maybe not a bad idea. But yeah, in general, I think people are very good at consuming and not thinking about you know, do I actually need this really expensive thing even though you can pay it off in 36 months. That’s probably the bigger issue, right?

Dan Kline  9:51

Yeah, for me, it’s not expensive things so much as it’s an accumulation of stuff I was showing you earlier. My phone is charging and this is like the 45th phone charger I bought. I bought it this week, because I’m going to be at at Disney’s Hollywood Studios on Thursday. And I wanted a compact charger that didn’t need a cable this has built in cable. So I’m sure I have one somewhere in the house. The other thing I’m sure I have is three more dongles to fix this, but none of them are here with me in Davenport, Florida.

So of course, I’m going to be going to Best Buy or someplace like that later today. And I’m going to feel really dumb. We’re going to take some of your comments live. I want to take the first comment from Max Lucas, a friend of the program, Sam, if you want to pull that one up, Maxx, if you want to read this one you are you have better vision than I do. It would be appreciated.

Maxx Chatsko  10:38

Yeah, Max says ‘I went to college and got a degree that I am now not using. But the degree is still very valuable, because it is in a respected field of study. Thankful I got it, even though I’m not using it.’ Yeah, I mean, not a bad idea. And you know, Max is interesting, right? He has a degree, I think it’s in petroleum engineering or something of those fields. Not in that field now, but you know, that’s still a valuable experience. And I kind of like those people, right, like, go into different career paths and do things that are unrelated. They tend to be more interesting people right, Dan

Dan Kline  11:08

Yeah, I, you know, I would say that I 100% knew in college, that what I was studying had nothing to do with what I was ever going to do for a living. But I didn’t particularly believe in studying journalism, I was the editor of the newspaper for two years, I was a working journalist for all four years of being in college. So it felt silly for me to and I took a couple of journalism classes, it felt silly for me to sit there and study something that I was already doing. So I’m a big fan of you study science, and then apply that to finance or journalism, or whatever it is, I think you can talk your way into just about any job. So again, you have to do the equation of can you get where you want to go. Without that big debt. I have a friend who’s a philosophy professor at a major university, and she has an enormous amount of student debt. I’m not gonna say where just in case she doesn’t want this talked about, but she’ll never be able to buy a house, you know, and she has an incredibly respectable dream job, it’s almost impossible to become a tenured philosophy professor. But that’s not a particularly lucrative field, and she lives in a particularly expensive part of the country. But if she didn’t get her PhD, she couldn’t have her present life. So I’ll have to ask her if the if the trade off was worth it. Sam, why don’t we take the next Twitter question on the list, I actually cannot see the nail. It’s from our very own Anirban Mahanti. Anirban, who I’m gonna be taping with tonight, for Friday’s show says people replacing their vehicle sooner than they need to because either they want a new one, or because there’s some incentive out there to spend up, perhaps an avocado toast daily is a close second. So we’re gonna talk about avocado toast later, but I want to talk about the vehicle thing, Max, I drive a 2014 Toyota Prius, I bought it because my 2016 Nissan was coming to the end of its life, it was starting to break down. And I went on carvanha. And I got right before the used car thing. But my wife and I have always been able to afford or at least in the last decade or so been able to afford new cars. And we always get used cars and then drive them pretty much into the ground. She drove my old Hyundai Elantra for so long that when asked the question, What color is it? We could no longer answer? Max? Do you even have a car? Like I think you do?

Maxx Chatsko  13:24

Yeah, no, I 100% agree with a nirvan here. Actually, just last Thursday was my eight year anniversary of my car that I have. So the first car I ever owned. And currently when I own obviously now, I’m going to you know, drive that until the wheels fall off, literally. But that is the best way to actually save money through car ownership. And I actually have tracked every car related expense since I’ve owned the car. And I’m gonna have an article coming out this Saturday about that with some cool data and insights, things that I’ve learned. So it’s if you do it right, and you own the car and you take care of it. It’s way cheaper than like I’m gonna get rid of my car and have a ride to use Uber all the time, right like the cost you pay per mile the expenses. owning your own car definitely makes sense. Of course we live in a city and you have to like pay some crazy amount for parking or something. Maybe the economics might be a little different.

Dan Kline  14:11

A lot of people throughout like you know just use public transportation public transportation is not practical for most people getting to work unless you live in Manhattan are one of the very few cities Boston that have robust public transportation. Here in Florida. Like in theory, I could take that my my wife’s office is off a train. But that train ride would take like an hour as opposed to like the 10 minute commute she has like it stops every single stop. So much of the US does not have that. But yeah, you want to look at your car and the delta of when is owning it costing you more than not owning it would cost you What I mean is at a certain part of the lifespan of a car. If you’re a big driver and I tend to drive like a mile a day but then 300 miles roundtrip coming here to to Orlando. If it gets to the point that you’re regularly needing repairs, your car might be Looking down it might be time to cash in your chips part of the reason I sold my car is it was worth about half what I paid for it and I owned it for four years or some or some crazy amount like that. So it was a really good deal to trade for a slightly older car. This is one of those where I understand the temptation to have something shiny and new I I fall for this I get the new iPhone every year I own way too many laptops, because I want the latest thing and here I’m using one that the camera doesn’t work particularly well and the dongle is broken. But that being said, this is an area where you can save you know excuse me, what’s your car paying 200 300 $400 a month depending what you’re driving get something practical you have one kid you don’t need a Land Rover or a you know a suburban or whatever it is Max doesn’t have any kids. I have one kid but the amount of people I see justifying some crazy car expense, because they have children is just insane.

Maxx Chatsko  15:49

Dan, my car is actually an Excursion. It has like 14 seats in it you remember.

Dan Kine  15:55

It’s basically the canyon arrow from the Simpsons. You know, it’s it’s not street legal and it seats 35. That being said, Sam Bailey, let’s keep plugging on. And we of course would love your questions and comments, we’re going to hit them up towards the end of this segment. buying more than you need examples home car jewelry, his clothes, luxury that you can’t afford, but don’t realize. So home is the toughest one here, Max, you haven’t owned a home, I’m pretty sure you’re renting the asset. This has been a line my wife and I have struggled with where we one of the first homes it was the third home we ever owned, we wanted to move to Newington, Connecticut, the town she grew up in, and we bought a house we could afford that didn’t need a lot of work. But it wasn’t really a great layout. We had a kid it was kind of you know, we had a baby at the time. It was it was sort of never the house we wanted, but the payment was great. When we sold that house, we then moved into the condo we lived in for a very long time, it was brand new construction. And it was about $100,000 more. There was also some level of Hoa though I think that was pretty small. And it was stressful for a few years that was before we were we were doing particularly well. So we went from our house payment being something we don’t even worry about. And we pay extra every month to our house payment being a pretty significant form. And this was right at the height of the bubble, were basically to get a mortgage, you had to go in and say oh, and I’ll pay it back like like there wasn’t paperwork, there wasn’t anything. So it is important with the house to be functional with this property we own here, we really wanted three bedrooms. But it became really obvious that that just wasn’t going to happen that the prices were going up so quickly, that we would bid on just about anything. And prices are up about $40,000 since we close two months ago, which is you know, like a quarter of the price we paid. So it’s so it’s you know, we had to act and we had to sacrifice something that we wanted. You know, meet means like when when my I bring my mother here in a few weeks with my son, well, either my son and I are sharing a bedroom where my mother and my son are sharing a bedroom spoiler, it’s my house, my my son and my mother are sharing a bedroom. But that being said, we would love you to keep commenting we will take those towards the end of this segment, Sam, if you want to share the next one. At some point, we will get to cable and satellite. So I’m going to push back here and say you’re wrong. So if you live in, if you live in a house of three as I do that, all watching different things. Admittedly, my son doesn’t watch a lot of traditional cable television. But I did the math on this every morning from about eight to 10. While I’m working I have ESPN get up on as background noise. I’m not paying a huge amount of attention. But I want to know the sports news of the day. In the late afternoon. I might have financial news on I might have the Simpsons on who knows. So that’s about three hours, maybe three and a half hours a day I’m casually passively watching TV. There’s about an hour at night, my wife and I watch something together. And then there’s somewhere between a half hour and two hours after she goes to bed. Or I’m watching streaming or cable or who knows what I would argue that cable which I don’t pay for it’s part of my Hoa and in both locations, but cable if I was paying for it is like two cents an hour of entertainment. So I understand you look at it. Oh, it’s $140 bill, but really break down your consumption and what are you missing? Like? I don’t want to not have all the NFL games during football season like like I’ve been watching the NBA Playoffs? Like that’s not that easy to do. If you don’t have cable. Max, do you have cable?

Maxx Chatsko  19:19

I do not. So I kind of agree with this. But again, it’s like a personal decision. I do think a lot of people will spend more than they need to on cable but like you said if your households actually using cable or all the streaming services you subscribe to and that is adding value. So I think if the you know optimize around is is providing value to me. Not just this cost $140 a month. We don’t need it right. It’s a little more complicated. But

Dan Kline  19:42

Yeah, I mean, we watch television, instead of going and doing something that cost more money there. There might be a night where like, Hey, you want to go out to dinner. It’s like now like there’s a movie on let’s or or Hey Dan wants to watch sports and he’ll watch it at home instead of going to a bar or whatever it is. I think you do have to consider it. Total thing we are talking areas, you can save money. And if you save that money, you can then invest it. I think there’s a lot of personal choice. Like, I I’m wasteful in minor ways, we talked about my electronics buying habits, I am not great about remembering what I own. For example, I know I own two microphones that can Bluetooth connect to my phone, but I don’t know where they are. So if I can’t find them, I’m probably gonna have to go get another one. I ordered things on on Prime Day, because they were good prices, not because I needed them. So on under $50 items, I tend to be wasteful on the big ticket things that really hit my bottom line, I tend to be very, very careful. And I’ll point out those things move as you move on in life. Like when my wife and I first lived together, I don’t think I would eat lunch out without us discussing it, you know, maybe a little, that’s a little silly. But you know, buying anything bigger than a CD was probably a group purchase. Now, we don’t talk to each other about anything unless it impacts the other person, you know. So like, if I want a bigger newer TV, I might ask because maybe she really likes the way the the existing TV fits or looks or, or you know, how it relates to the couch or whatever. But I’m not asking about the money because we’re at the point where that purchase isn’t that big a deal. Like even trading in my car is just something like one day she’s like, Wait, did you get a new car? I’m like, Yeah, I traded my car, like, like, and we’ve talked a lot. So I don’t want to act like there’s no communication there. But the next one on the list, I think is the most important one and I really want to talk to it, then we’re going to go in order with your questions and comments. But Sam, if you want to share the coffee, one, that would be great. Buying coffee when you can make it at home. So many would be millionaires that end up in poverty, okay. I don’t think anyone’s ending up in poverty because they’re going to Starbucks unless they have a true problem or Dunkin Donuts or Panera, or wherever it may be. I’ll give a little shout out I go to the Orlando cat, cafe minge coffee here in Davenport, Florida, where it’s everything is hand done. And incredibly, you know, delicious. And I spend my you know, $6 for a cup of coffee. And you know what, I relish it, it is a joyful part of my day, I don’t enjoy it. As much as I enjoy making coffee or throwing coffee. I mean, I do make coffee at home, I have a little cold brew machine. I have 17 different coffee makers. I enjoy the ritual of especially now that I’m older where I really only drink one cup of coffee each day. That to me is worth the value. Now if you’re reflexively going to work and buying an expensive coffee that doesn’t bring you joy, and you could absolutely just get a nice coffee at work. I understand that when I was going into my co working space, which is a really cool coffee making robot. There were days especially when the pandemic had closed the dining rooms where I wasn’t going to sit in a drive thru for 30 minutes to get a cup of coffee, and I was going to settle for the mediocre robot made vanilla latte. But whether it’s coffee or avocado toast, I think you need to do a read of the value and coffees and affordable indulgence if it’s part of your ritual. You know, my wife drinks three cups of tea a day and I know it’s part of her ritual. So I’m not gonna say hey, you know if we cut back on tea bags, use each one twice like to me if your hobby is buying, you know maza rotties that’s a problem. If your your bad habit is that you have a cup of coffee, Maxx, I know you’re not a big coffee guy, but how do you feel about this job? It’s thrown at your generation it’s millennials and avocado toast you know and I get it you can make avocado toast at home for like 10 cents and it’s like $9 at a first lunch. But that being said If you really love avocado toast it’s it’s it’s a healthy choice. Like it doesn’t seem like that big a deal to me.

Maxx Chatsko  23:35

So I kind of agree with this comment though. Like you know, I think a lot of people do spend too much on coffee right? Even if it’s a ritual if you spend I don’t even know I make mine at home every day right and it’s awesome. I drink decaf. I just don’t drink you know, I’ll pump my veins with caffeine like oh yo there’s savages out there. But you know what is what is the Star Wars coffee Dan like I don’t know, six bucks 10

Dan Kline  23:58

bucks anywhere from $3 to $6 in any of those you know specialty coffee places. And I will say now that the world is open. I work at home I love the change of venue of grabbing my laptop and having someone else do it and like you I drink a lot of decaf and you’re kind of limited in in the decaf. You can you can make on your own or in terms of and that’s it I have the cold brew thing I do buy a lot of coffee and make but I also buy a lot of packaged coffee I drink a protein coffee some days that has caffeine in it. It’s hard to go to the store and buy a pre packaged decaffeinated already mixed latte or whatever it is. So again, it’s relative and I will say that for health reasons. I tend to go towards the $3 cup of coffee that’s that’s a little bit of skim milk whipped into a foam and and less sugar or no sugar. I you know I’m very rarely going for the the macchiato or the whatever a Chino I am generally go You know, pretty close to a basic coffee. Max, I’ll give you the final word here. We’re taking too long on this one.

Maxx Chatsko  25:04

No, I mean, it’s a popular topic. Yeah, I think you know, don’t live like a Puritan and deprive yourself of life’s little joys. But maybe, you know, if you’re doing it every day, it does add up, you’re not gonna not become a millionaire, because you go to Starbucks every day. But over the course of the year, I mean, you know, it can add up to a pretty significant amount of money.

Dan Kline  25:23

It is significant. And you also have to think the cost benefit analysis. Are there days where I go to a coffee place and have something you know, something to eat something to drink, that I might have ordered $20 worth of sushi for lunch, like so? Did I just spent $9, or I would have spent $20. Like that, that happens. But I think in life, we should be more conscious with our spending. I think that’s really the lesson to be learned here. Let’s take the first comment, Sam from Andrew Connelly. I will let max read this one. We got a couple of great comments from Andrew. But we’ll take this one next.

Maxx Chatsko  25:53

Andrew says I like the value is to approach if it’s something I value, I’ll spend the money but forego the things that don’t add enough value for the cost. Yeah, I think that’s right. We just kind of talked about that. Right? Does this add value to my life, then you can actually justify the cost I think. So that’s that’s a good approach.

Dan Kline  26:10

I have nothing to add there. I think buying things that bring us very short term joy is something we hopefully grow out of, and we Max, you’ve been around kids and they want it, they want it, they want it and then 30 seconds later, it’s not something they use. So you know, there’s a lot my son owns a million Nerf guns and there’s not a lot of capacity to use Nerf guns where we live. So are those good values? No, is our Xbox which cost 10 times a Nerf gun a good value? Yeah, he plays Xbox every day for hours, maybe not a great use of his time, but certainly a great value. We will take tirth ps comment next, feel free to get your questions and comments in not understanding or ignorance of the magics of savings and compounding in my opinion. That’s the biggest mistake people can make. Yeah, it’s not taught. You know, I wish in my early days when I made no money, I had the easy ability like you do now to just take 5% of my paycheck and put it in an investing account. It wasn’t so easy to move paycheck I got a physical paycheck at that those jobs. But Max Your thoughts? You’re a little bit younger than me but you’ve been investing way longer than I have.

Maxx Chatsko  27:14

You got paid in like a sack of like silver Sterling or something? How is that? How old you are?

Dan Kline  27:18

It was a little bit like that? Yes.

Maxx Chatsko  27:22

Yeah, you know, a lot of things. We don’t teach kids in high school, right? You’re learning Shakespeare and like Latin, which has no value Really? Right. We should kind of retool the education system a little bit. But yeah, learning how to balance finances Little things like compound interest add up, especially if you start early. And I think a lot of this comes back like even that last comment on you know, does this add value? You know, I think if more people defined their level of enough and that should change as you progress through life, but then you’re not chasing excess right? And I think a lot of people don’t define you know, what is enough for me and then they end up even without realizing it chasing excess right? So you buy too much house you buy too much car, you buy 17 coffees a week, whatever it is. So I think you know, like that’s one of the biggest changes I’ve made financially and I’m grateful I learned that early on but what is your level of enough it’s pretty simple. And just like doing that little thought experiment really helps you to kind of put things into perspective

Dan Kline  28:17

Yeah, I try to budget even when it comes to fun and I don’t mean like ridiculously that I’m going to deny myself that you know extra whatever when I’m on a trip or something but if I’m if I’m going gambling and I am I am headed headed to see where there will be a casino July 2 to July 5. I know exactly how much money I’m going to allot to gambling each night. And at the end of that night I take what’s left or what I’ve won and put it away and the next night is a new allotment of money so if on the first night I was gonna gamble say I don’t know $200 and I lose it all I’ve lost $200 if I have a good night and I’m and I’m up $300 I take that $500 and now of my three night trip I’ve returned two and a half of what I would have spent I’m not tempted to take that money out now if I hit for two grand or something I might you know adjust that but those tend to be dumb luck hits you don’t have a lot of blackjack you know nights that go that crazy. Well, you know, I’m playing $10 hand blackjack, I’m not playing you know Baccarat with James Bond or anything like that. I want to take the comment on wedding Sam if you want to share that one. Cuz this is a controversial topic as big wedding. Thank you beach chair investors. So I had a big wedding. My parents paid for our wedding. It was absolutely lovely. We got married in the Peabody Essex Museum. And at the time, it was something that that was well within their budget, and it did not saddle my wife and I with debt. That being said, if you are getting married and you have to pay for your wedding, invite your friends over and have pizza, have a nice wedding where you make memories, do whatever. I would always argue, do whatever level you can do nicely. So if you’re going to have everybody over for pizza Get the good stuff. You know, don’t don’t don’t order Domino’s or you know Papa John’s get the the nice local place and, and you know, don’t buy the crazy wedding cake and a really good cake from a bakery that isn’t a wedding cake. There’s a lot of things you could do where it would still be memorable. I’ve gone to weddings that were top dollar. I’ve never been to a wedding as nice as mine. But I’ve gone to weddings that were top dollar that were not all that enjoyable. I’ve gone to weddings where they do the whole like low budget nice, where like your prime rib you couldn’t saw through with, you know, with with a chainsaw. And I’ve gone to weddings that you know, they catered from the local, you know, deli where the food was really good because it’s a really good deli. So there’s all sorts of levels to this. Maxx, you’re not married, but uh, but your thoughts on the eventual Maxx Chatsko wedding?

Maxx Chatsko  30:46

You know, Dan, I think he took this question just so you could get another shot in at Domino’s Pizza and how awful you think it is. So I’m on to your tricks?

Dan Kline  30:55

I am Team Noid. that is definitely true.

Maxx Chatsko  30:59

Yeah, I mean, weddings, I mean, when people go into debt for weddings, that’s kind of ridiculous, right? Do something you can afford a nice small wedding with people you actually like, you know, that’s probably more enjoyable. And really, like a few years later, you’re not even gonna like your spouse, you know, so why spend so much money on a wedding, it just doesn’t really make good economic sense.

Dan Kline  31:17

I have been married for 21 years, and I’ve lived with my wife for 23 years, and can say never been happier. I can also say whatever I want, because she’s not listening. There’s zero chance she’s gonna hear this. But that said, my mother will probably listen at some point. So probably good to report that while she is not with me on this trip. It doesn’t have to be bad. You know, you hear a lot of bad things about weddings, the other one people threw out and I’ll take the the comment from Tristin Wakeley as our last live comment here, and this one is going to Yeah, this one’s controversial. Too many children, by far the biggest money slash time expense, healthcare, vacation food, everything is a lot more. So how many kids you have is a very personal choice. But I do think there is a financial implication that people don’t give enough consideration to so we always knew we were having one kid. You know what, what one kid what was always our plan, we felt if you didn’t have a kid, you probably get divorced. If we had more than one kid we wouldn’t have wouldn’t have gone well for us. But having one child is infinitely cheaper when it comes to health care than multiple children. So it is it is really difficult with childcare. If you have like a two year old and a seven year old, you’re spending a significant amount of money on that. So again, have as many kids as you want our own Matt Cochran has at least four kids, that he has four kids, I’m pretty sure that it’s hard to count. There’s so many of them. But he has four kids. And he’s happy and his wife is happy. And it’s a choice they made eyes wide open, knowing you know what they were going to be getting into. A lot of people have a kid because it’s a, you know, meeting other needs. Yes. And my mom is listening. And she says behave yourself. Yeah, that I said nothing but nice things and complimentary things. We appreciate so many of you participating in this, feel free to jump on the Twitter feed, which has been shared by my handle at worst idea seven. And through the app 7Investing, and throw in your things. I feel like this is a topic that’s going to be pretty evergreen. And it’s one that has room to debate like, you know, I, I drive an old car, but I’m not a car person. I have friends that would rather sleep outside but have a nice car because they really care about cars that matters more to them than anything. I have a dear friend who who still lives at home. And he’s well he’s like Max’s age, because he drives a really, really expensive car that we tried to talk him out of. But it does bring him a lot of joy. So all of these things are relative. But the sooner you invest, the more you invest, the better you’re going to do. We’re going to talk about a totally different topic in a second here. Max, one of your mind, we’re gonna talk about something in the CRISPR space. Right?

Maxx Chatsko  33:55

Yeah, there’s the first data readout from an in vivo CRISPR gene editing tool is expected I think, this Saturday at a scientific meeting.

Dan Kline  34:05

We’re gonna get to that momentarily. But before we do just a little bit of a reminder, let’s help max pay off the student loans here and make 7Investing the biggest pot can possibly be we right now, charge $49 a month or $399 a year Why do I say right now, because if you as of July 8, our prices are increasing to $49 a month or $399 a year still a tremendous value. But if you are already a member or become a member between now and the end of the day on July 7, you will be locked in at the initial pricing. So as long as you remain a member you will pay that $49 a month that that $399 a year. That is a ridiculous value. Why are we doing that? Because we’re here because of all of you because we’re a thriving company because so many of you have joined if you’re already a member, of course, go into your account, you have a referral code share that referral. code, and people get a little bit of a deal on that $49 a month or, or the $399 a year, and you get one month for free. If you are not a member or don’t see referral code, go to 7investing.com/subscribe. And sign up, you are crazy to not be a member we are we are offering you seven amazing stock picks a month, members only calls a new subscriber call. We actually had someone today who had been to a new subscriber call and still had some questions. And I’m actually going to chat with that person while I’m driving home on Friday, because they wrote us a thoughtful question, you know, questions, and it was just easier to talk to them than to write out the answer. And are we going to talk one on one to every person? No. But if there’s a reason to do it, we’re absolutely going to do it. That’s the level and this was after a fairly long email exchange. So this isn’t some nameless, faceless company. When you’re writing into us, your answers are coming back and it’s from Max. It’s from Steve Symington. It’s from me, the seven of us at Sam Bailey, the rest of our marketing team, we are hands on with all of this. But with that being said, Max, let’s get to your what we’re watching it give the intro again. And then we will go through what intellia therapeutics plans to do here.

Maxx Chatsko  36:14

Yeah, so sometime, I think Saturday at a scientific conference, intelli therapeutics, which is a CRISPR gene editing company, is expected to announce results from its lead drug candidate. And it’s actually the first time we’re going to have data in humans, for an in vivo CRISPR gene editing tool. So to date, we use ex vivo. So in vivo means inside the body, ex vivo means outside the body. To date, we’ve used CRISPR gene editing more as like a lab tool, right? So we take cells in the lab, we genetically engineer them with CRISPR tools, we grow them up, expand them, we can screen them out as well, and then put them back in the body. So it’s a more controlled setting. But we’re actually administering CRISPR tools into the body. Right? It’s a lot more complex. Other safety concerns, other targets for efficacy, how do you deliver the payload into the right cells, etc, etc. Many more layers of difficulty. So this is the first time we’re going to have any data for a CRISPR gene editing tool used inside of the body.

Dan Kline  37:12

So Maxx, after this data, how long until I can get CRISPR gene editing in vivo? Is this. Is this the final step on the journey here? I’m teasing a little bit because I know it’s absolutely not.

Maxx Chatsko  37:22

Yeah, so this is a very, very early look at the data, it’s probably only gonna be a handful of patients to be honest, and it’s in a rare disease, right. So this company is trying to knock out the TTR gene, which plays a role in hereditary actr amyloidosis. So it’s a very rare disease maybe affects 50,000 people globally, you can kind of adjust the numbers if you count people who have it’s called wild type or carriers to maybe 250,000 people globally or so. But it’s a rare disease. So this isn’t really used caught, like it’s not going to be a very telling data readout. But obviously, the markets are very much interested in even the initial data. So right now, though, the company has a market valuation, and I think it was just up even more today, it’s like five and a half billion dollars. So it has no data. It has one pre Clint or no acid in the clinic for invivo tools. So people are very excited that’s really driving this valuation up. But there’s some other things that investors might want to consider, you know, in terms of what this means in the longer term for the company.

Dan Kline  38:25

So we have to be really careful here, there is a lot of promising technology, I read a great article today about how they might be able to use stem cells to repair heart cells. And that’s something they haven’t been able to do stay Billy, it’s it’s a, it works, but it causes other problems in animal testing. And there were some promising results. And that’s great. Look, I I’m I’m 47 years old. And these are the kinds of things you think about and worry about. That being said, promising isn’t reality, having something in the pipeline isn’t the same as having something be investable. So we’ll follow up with Max about this next week. And yes, Max, you can have the last word here on this one.

Maxx Chatsko  39:02

Yeah. So I think that’s pretty good. That’s it hits it on the head, right. So there’s a long way to go for this development. And a lot of people really caught up in CRISPR gene editing. And it’s like in the media, right? There’s documentaries on netflix about it. So everyone and your crazy uncle heard about, you know, CRISPR gene editing. So I think that’s pushed up a lot of the valuations for these stocks, a lot of excitement, but also to think about, you know, there’s gonna be some development hurdles for sure for some of these therapeutics and these pipelines, there’s also commercial obstacles as well. Right. So until the therapeutics for its in vivo CRISPR gene editing knockout candidates, which is what these first few drug candidates from his pipeline will be, have to compete directly with RNA interference. So I just actually published an article, anybody can read it. I posted it to Twitter this morning. Where you know, RNA AI is pretty effective at doing what knockout trying to do. Now, you have to dose them more frequently, right like CRISPR gene endings permanent irreversible promises that it’s one and done treatment for patients and you get the lifelong benefits of The treatment RNA right now, the dose at once every three months, there’s some formulation changes coming, you can maybe dose at once every six months, some are even looking at once every year. So that’s actually pretty convenient, right? And it’s a simple shot. So if you have some of these rare diseases, you have to go to your doctor anyway, at least once a year. So if you just have to go in, you talk to your doctor, you have some other tests, maybe you get a simple shot. Like that’s not really that inconvenient. Right? So some of these companies that are working on like, one and done treatments, you know, they kind of ham it up, right? They talk about like, well, everything else is chronic treatments. And it’s not like you’re taking a pill every day, or there’s nasty side effects. RNA is actually like pretty clean, there’s really no side effects. The most, you know, common side effects for a lot of these are injection site reactions, right. So it’s like right after you get the shot. And then if you don’t have to take one for the next 12 months, like, you know, that’s, that’s pretty good for convenience. And there’s also some safety concerns with CRISPR. So I think regulators, and even doctors and patients, you know, even if these candidates get approved years from now, you know, there might be a little more competition in the competitive landscape than Wall Street, are investors really pricing in to a lot of these CRISPR stocks right now. So you do have to think about valuation. You know, and if like, the stock goes crazy this week, or next week, when the data are released, and they’re very early, you know, just be cautious of, you know, chasing momentum and think longer term.

Dan Kline  41:19

Yeah, I think this is one of those ones where there is a prime benefit. And being a 7Investing subscriber, and seeing sort of where Max is going, where he’s investing how he feels about valuation. All of that is, of course, in our stock picks. So if, if Max has picked a stock in one of these spaces, in the report, he’s going to tell you what he thinks about valuation. And he might say, Boy, I think this company’s you know, ahead of itself with valuation, or, hey, wow, I don’t understand why it’s not worth more they have, you know, some things that are this far along. But that is an important piece of the puzzle, probably much more right now. We’re biotech is sort of big news. And a lot of time, it’s big news based on something that might take like seven years to actually happen, and may not get there. Like, you know, when you have like, random people like out of the coffee shop talking mRNA. You know, that is a little weird. That is not normally you know what we’re doing, I up until six months ago, I would have there maybe eight months, I would have thought that was Mr. Na, and he was maybe an anonymous character somewhere. So this is a space to tread very, very carefully. And again, join us at 7Investing where you could learn, I apologize again, for the bad lighting today that I am having dogville problems with my laptop making do as best we can. We appreciate so many questions and comments. But Sam Bailey, let’s hit our finisher, before I run out of laptop power. Do you believe GameStop can find a path to being a viable long term success. 19% of you said yes. 72.4% said no 8.4% said to the moon. So here’s the answer. And this is my space, not Max’s? The answer is yes. But the answer isn’t Yes. As a stock, can this be a retailer that makes a small profit every year, and maybe eventually does better? That is possible, they have a good balance sheet. every article you read the reason I put this up was it was more claptrap or nonsense about the company’s pivot to digital. TWITCH exists. YouTube exists, I can get games directly on my console, there is no pivot to digital that makes sense for this company. There might be some sort of physical middle ground with us games and memorabilia and expertise that they could latch on to and figure out and add other products in. Maybe they go heavy into board games, or collectible miniatures or things that can be 3d printed, or who knows what they don’t have an answer. And none of that justifies anywhere close to where the stock has been trading. So when you look at a company, there is a big difference. And this applies to biotech as well, too. Can this be a successful money making company? And is this company a good stock to own? Sometimes the price of the stock makes it not a good stock? Sometimes the endless expense of certain industries means that oh that company’s profitable, but cheap, it’s always going to be having to invest billions of dollars. That’s why I don’t invest in say T Mobile, a company I like a lot. But I’ve said this many times on this show. As soon as we’re done with 5g, they have to start investing in six G and it’s never ending and I understand that I’m historically wrong when it comes to T Mobile that that’s been a pretty good investment. But that being said, I think the disruption is over. It’s not something I put my money in. Again, I’m probably going to be wrong there. Max, you want to weigh in on this one. I know GameStop isn’t exactly your wheelhouse, but the evaluation part of it is

Maxx Chatsko  44:52

GameStop is only valued at $15 billion. Dan, I think that’s a bargain. It’s probably going to be worth more than Apple by next week. I look forward to your attracting all of your state now. Yeah, I think you’re right in like for valuations, right? That’s exactly the point, right? If you’re a long term investor, you’re buying something holding it and thinking it’s gonna create more value in the long term. But if valuations are elevated, you may have to hold on longer for that to grow into its valuation, or, you know, valuation premiums fall all the time, right? Like, if the Fed increases interest rates in the next few years, which seems likely, you know, we might pay less for growth. So all of these things affect like, it might be a great business, and you can still overpay for it. And in biotech, you know, you don’t even have a business in terms of financial fundamentals, right, we don’t have revenue, we don’t have earnings, we don’t cash flow. So the fundamentals are a little different. You’re kind of valuing things based on what you think the probability of success is that a drug will eventually earn approval. And sometimes there’s non market factors that are driving up valuations, you know, there’s hype, there’s various other things, right media exposure, and that can kind of create some lofty valuations. So like, if we get a data readout from a clinical trial, and everyone’s super excited, and there’s like, no room for risk priced in, you’re gonna have a bad day, if those are mixed results or negative results, which happens all the time in drug development. So you do have to be more careful, you can’t just follow like Twitter necessarily, right, or social media, and get all your biotech information there. I think there’s gonna be some pain ahead. You know, in the next year or two, some of these valuations fall when they the data readouts maybe go the other way.

Dan Kline  46:28

This was a show full of investing lessons. We appreciate you making it interactive, we appreciate all the love on Twitter, the many of you watching, I know, this wasn’t your typical stock market show. But in the end of the day, if you don’t have any money, you can’t invest. One of the things we don’t talk about a lot, is don’t borrow money to invest. That’s almost always a bad idea. But we’ve had people ask us the question, wow, I could take out a mortgage on my house, and the money is so cheap, you know, I can get a three and a half percent mortgage and even an average returns, I’ll make 9%. Yeah, until you don’t. And then it’s your house that you put at risk. So there are some things that it just doesn’t make sense. If you have credit card debt, it probably makes sense to pay off that credit card debt, because you’re not going to get a 19 or a 22% or whatever interest rate you’re paying return most of the time where you certainly can’t count on that. And I’m not talking the small amount of revolving debt people have that they pay off, you know, every month, I’m talking to people that have 10s of 1000s of dollars worth of debt. On the other hand, if you have student loan debt, that’s at very, very low interest, and there’s no incentive to pay it off quickly. You should be investing so this is these are topics we’re going to hit a lot over the summer, especially as the news flow gets quieter. But until then, if you’d like to get in touch with us info@7investing.com that’s our email address. For those of you who are younger, that’s sort of like a letter that comes to our computer. It’s kind of like sending a text message, or an Instagram or whatever.

Maxx Chatsko  47:55

What’s the letter, Dan? What is that?

Dan Kline  47:58

knew I knew when I said it, that I was going in the wrong direction. But we I’ve literally lived to the point that letters have become irrelevant. And a lot of people now think email is irrelevant, but you can still email us. You can also reach out to us on Twitter that is @7Investing on Twitter. If you are a member tag us when you share your referral code. We are always happy to retweet those until then it is very hot here in Florida. I am Dan Klein. He is Maxx Chatsko, Sam Bailey is behind the glass. We will be back on Friday from a hotel room somewhere in Orlando. I’m headed to Disney tomorrow. We will see you then. Thank you.